Flavoring components are utilized in a wide variety of food and beverage products to impart, provide, modify, or improve the flavor or taste to the product. Such components often inherit some undesirable characteristics due to processing of the raw materials. Also, it is possible that desirable flavor characteristics can be lost or degraded after processing or storage over time. All these undesirable characteristics result in lower quality of products to which these components are added.
For example, coffee aroma derived from Robusta coffee beans is perceived as harsh, rubbery, or earthy, and is undesirable for some consumers. Coffee aroma from low grade Arabica coffee beans is also perceived to be fermented, baggy, or cereal in nature. Another example, delicate coffee aroma is often degraded, lost during processing as seen in instant coffee and ready-to-drink manufacturing methods. Also, coffee aroma is known to be very unstable. As coffee aroma degrades, it generates unpleasant and non-coffee-like notes that are undesirable. This degradation substantially reduces the perceived quality of the product. For this reason, special attention must be paid to the preparation and storage of flavoring components such as coffee aroma so that desirable aroma components are enhanced or undesirable components are reduced or eliminated.
The prior art recognizes that various flavor protective agents can be added to food or beverage products in order to preserve, maintain, or improve the flavor characteristics of such products. It is well known in the art that sulfites can be added to beverages such as beer or wine to preserve the flavor of such beverages. Generally, sulfites act as antioxidants to prevent deterioration of the flavor. For example, sulfites can react with oxygen to prevent deterioration of the flavor of the product due to oxidation of the flavoring component.
Also, Japanese patent application 08/196212 discloses the addition of sulfite, catalase, cysteine, or glutathione to a coffee beverage when liquid is added to reconstitute the beverage. This is not very effective as the sulfite simply dissolves in the beverage without significantly improving or preserving the aroma because the sulfite is added into the whole food matrix and is integrated therein.
Instead of adding the sulfites directly to food products, U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,409 discloses that sulfites may be incorporated into the packaging to prevent absorption of oxygen into the packaged food. Again, oxidation of the flavor component is reduced so that the desired flavor of the food is retained for a longer period of time.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,540,889 discloses that methyl mercaptan can be added to an aqueous extract of soluble coffee solids prior to drying the extract to a stable moisture content for improving the flavor of this extract when it is reconstituted as a coffee beverage.
Despite these disclosures, there still remains a need for improvement of aromas by enhancing desirable aroma components, reducing undesirable components, and preserving volatile flavoring components in order to improve their ability to impart the desired flavor, taste, and other sensory characteristics to foods to which they are added. The present invention now provides a number of practical solutions that satisfy this need.